There have been times in our lives when the confirmations of our prognostication gives but little pleasure. One such instance presently exists regarding our often-expressed fear of societal damage proximately brought about by the facile use of “smartphones,” as a universal substitute for personal interactive conversation (in person or by telephone). Last evening, on the news media, we saw and heard America’s learned and elegant Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, relate the ubiquitous harm, especially to the young, caused by the exclusive use of such devices. He cited the alarming growth among America’s children in the advent and incidence of mental problems, specifically, depression and anxiety.
Since the advent of “plinyblog.com,” we have often expressed the felt insalubriousness in the decline of natural and societal, interpersonal communication. We have been consistently fearful lest the alternate, facile transmission of electronic messages, to another’s small lighted screen, often at a future and non-contextual time, would be an inadequate emotional substitute for spontaneous interaction; lacking the latter’s nuanced voice recognition, authenticity and spontaneity of relevant response. As confirmed by the Nation’s Surgeon General, we were sadly prescient.
However, Dr. Murthy seemed, strangely, to confine his observations to the subject of the “content” of social media and its verifiably unhealthy impact upon our young citizens; whose universally, idiosyncratic mode of contemplating reality and outlet for interactive expression appears to be limited to the cold and impersonal language and depiction of factual reality as manually transmitted to their hand-held smartphone. Unrealistic aspirations for such advertised physical appearances and capabilities, as electronically portrayed, he correctly observed, is a reliable source for the observable plethora of disappointed and depressive incidents.
It has been our (non-professional) view, however, that the etiology of the inarguably, increased depressive and anxiety syndrome has, indeed, a far more profound and deeper metaphysical basis than the stated unhealthy outcomes brought about by computer program “content.”
It is our understanding that fundamental, person-to-person, interactive communication is an existential need for Man living in society. It has the merit of the preservation of the necessary dynamics of society and, as well, the basis of the identity, public and internal (self-image) of its members. It has eternally been our presumption that the individual derives his self-image, or felt personal identity, in great part, from the derivative perception of an interactive and empirically based reaction to himself, by the other members of his community.
To the extent that the personal awareness of a utilitarian, identified and referable self (self-image) remains undeveloped, the individual is emotionally, rootless and rudderless in a singularly insecurely perceptive confinement and veritable oasis from others. He is out of societal sync and insecure. The unwise choice of impersonal electronic signals to the detriment of personal contact and verbal exchange is undoubtedly responsible for the resultant feelings of isolation and lonely despair.
While we are in indisputable accord with the Surgeon General’s attribution of the alarming exponential increase in cases of depression and anxiety (especially among the youth) by virtue of the employment of the subject, cold and inexpressive devices, in lieu of salubrious personal conversation, we are of the considered view that the causation goes far beyond his attribution of the irresponsibility of content, to this basic, metaphysical dysfunction of the societal Homo Sapiens.
–p.
*Merci, for the use of the above title, to the sociological novelist David Riesman.
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